Sings the Nightbird
by Laudine
Summary: Rewritten, scope vastly narrowed. Sometimes we don't see the things right in front of us until it's almost too late. Twists of fate and how they can change the course of so many lives forever. Rather AU, Logan/OC.
1. Prelude

**Disclaimer: I don't own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all original characters are mine.**

**Sings the Nightbird**

**Prelude**

_Isabel speaks._

I don't think Logan meant to hurt me, now that I think of it. He might not be the nicest person all the time, but underneath he is a good man, a decent man, a man more deserving of something better than the strange, tragic life he has led. I think we both made mistakes since that night, and I wish to God I could take back every mean, terrible thing I had said to him the day after. I wish I had said, "Yes, this is awkward, but let's give this a try." I think that's what he wanted—I think. He is so hard to read sometimes, with his grave, impassive face and his deep, yet hard blue eyes.

I first met him when I returned from Brittany; I was twenty years old at the time, wrapped up in myself mostly, in being a sorority girl and living in the house and doing well in classes and—well, yes—being pretty. I had been painfully shy all throughout my high school years; college was when I really blossomed. In high school I was the pretty, intelligent girl who seemed older than her years and who dual enrolled at Empire State University and who was always busy with ballet and fencing classes or something after school. Well, I take that back—I was involved in the French Club at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic High School in Westchester. I still had some of my Chicago friends; Caitlin went on from Catholic school to public high school, and then there were others from whom I haven't heard since I graduated from college. Caitlin Sprague is one of the best friends I have, and I became close with all of my teammates; Jean and Ororo were two of my best friends, and they weren't much older than I was, really, just one or two years. And of course there was Scott, and Hank, and Kevin—or Morph. So it was easy to fit into that makeshift family, with Professor Xavier as a father.

So when I came back from my grandmother's in France, of course, I had gifts for everyone—perfume, books, a copy of a Monet for Storm, all kinds of things. I had sent the alcohol ahead of time, wines from different vineyards in the Loire Valley for the Professor's wine cellar and a bottle of rather potent Calvados from Normandy for Morph since I couldn't think of what to get for him. I wonder what Logan must have thought when he first saw me, some pretentious little thing, skin bronzed and hair burnished from the weeks in the sun and sea, dressed in a fitted t-shirt with my letters on it, a pair of yoga capris, and black flipflops with rhinestone embellishments on the thongs. Morph dragged me down to the rec room, going on and on about how I had to meet the new recruit. I thought he was going to be this wonderful, impressive person, from the way Morph was talking.

He wasn't.

He wasn't much taller than I was, and he was leaning over the pool table with a look of disgust on his face. Later I learned it was the smell of my Fae blood that put him off.

"Logan, this is the infamous Isabel," Morph announced with a flourish, and his attempt at alliteration was not too amusing to either me or Logan.

"A sorority girl, huh?" Logan laughed. "Ya didn't tell me yer girlfriend was a sorority girl, Morph!"

"I'm not his girlfriend," I protested, glaring at him icily.

"Shouldn'tchya be at the sorority house loungin' by the pool an' drinkin' daiquiris?" he went on.

"We can't drink at the house—it's against Panhel rules. And school hasn't started yet, and we don't have a pool." I sat down on the couch and turned on the television, flipping languidly through the channels, my mind clouded from jetlag. "And I _don't_ like daiquiris!"

"Fair enough." He turned to Morph. "So we gonna split that bottle of Calvados tonight, Morph?"

"Sure thing, bro," Morph answered, grabbing a pool cue. When I heard that I nearly jumped out of my skin; I dissipated into the silvery vapor that I can become and made my way to stand beside Morph, and when I rematerialized I elbowed him. "Isabel! Ow! God, you pack a punch for someone your size!"

"Morph!" I exclaimed. And then again for emphasis, "_Morph!_ You _know_ that isn't supposed to be drunk all at once! It's expensive…and strong!"

The newcomer reached into his faded jeans pocket for his wallet. "I'll pay ya for it if it means that much ta ya, darlin'."

I sniffed and glanced at him derisively. "It was a gift," I replied loftily.

"If it was a gift, ya wouldn't be tellin' him what ta do with it, now, wouldjya?" he said.

I spun around away from him and returned my attention to _One Life to Live_. I lost myself in the trials of the newest couple while they played, and I ignored the clicking of the billiard balls against each other and the good-natured insults that both men tossed at each other. Too much testosterone. And then I heard the man named Logan mutter, "Why not?" And then he called out to me.

"Hey, Sorority Girl."

"It's Isabel," I corrected.

"Okay then, _Isabel_." He laughingly emphasized my name. "You play?"

"I know how to play pool," I said, turning my head over my shoulder to address him.

"Ya wanna play?"

"I don't hustle pool."

"Come on, Isabel," Morph whined. "You and me against him. He keeps creaming me. I already owe him two twelve-packs of Molson and some Canadian whiskey."

"Like I said, I don't hustle pool. I play for fun."

"Okay then, _princess_, we don't gotta play for money." He gave me a cue. "You an' Morph against me."

"All right then," I answered, up for the challenge. I snatched the pool cue from him.

Morph and I lost. Miserably.

And that was my first encounter with Logan, the Wolverine.

I caught wind of the triangular affair between Jean, Logan, and Scott a few weeks into the fall semester. I could see the colors in their auras, could intuit things that were unfolding. The first hint was a few days after I returned from France. I was on one of the treadmills in the gym when Jean came in—beautiful, tall, graceful Jean Grey who was one of the sweetest people in the world and who I really _tried_ to be more like—and she got on the other treadmill and turned it on with the friendliest of smiles. "So I hear you met Logan," she remarked as she began to warm up.

"Yes." I turned down my music—NSync, of course—and made a face. "He's an asshole."

"Oh, Isabel, I'm sure you just got off on the wrong foot. You'll warm up to him."

Oh, if you believe so, Jean!

"He called me Sorority Girl, Jean," I complained petulantly. "And he asked me why I wasn't at the sorority house lounging by the pool and drinking daiquiris."

Jean let out a laugh in spite of herself.

"It's not funny," I pouted. "I don't even like daiquiris, Jean. _You_ know that…"

"Isabel, focus!" she said jovially. "We're beyond the daiquiri joke, silly!" Her expression grew more serious.

"So how did he end up here anyhow?" I prodded. "He hardly seems to be the type who'd be a good X-Man."

Jean inhaled, hesitating. She didn't pick up her pace to a run; rather, she kept at a brisk walk. So it was a light day on the treadmill. "Danger Room session later," she explained quickly.

"Oh."

"But getting back to your question." Her pretty face twisted; I always wished I could be that beautiful in contemplation. "Professor Xavier recruited him. He more or less stole him from some Black Ops group up in Canada. Logan is going to join us, and in return, we're going to help him solve his…memory problems."

"Memory problems?" I echoed, suppressing a snort of derisive laughter. Jean gave me a dirty look.

"Be a little more sensitive about it, Isabel. You're a lot luckier than a lot of students who have come through here. You have a mother who loves you very much and who would do anything for you, and a very supportive extended family besides," she scolded. "Sometimes you act like such a spoiled little brat."

That was true.

"Anyway," she continued, "Professor Xavier and I will be helping him to regain his memories and to calm down his feral rages. The Professor thinks it would be a great chance for me to further develop my telepathy."

"Feral rages?" I glanced at her sideways. Her aura was tinged with pink. She made a disgusted sound and closed herself off from my intuition.

"It might be good for you, too, Isabel," she said, glancing at me with her knowing green eyes. "You always have wanted to use your intuition to help people." And then I caught a smile playing at the corners of her lips. "He's also a pro in Japanese martial arts. You could learn a lot from him, Isabel. Fencing is great, but you don't need to use that skill exclusively."

"True," I acknowledged. "Why so secretive about your colors, Jean?"

"What do you mean?" she queried noncommittally.

"You know what I mean. You had pink in your aura before you shut me out."

"That's none of your business, Isabel," Jean said firmly, but I pressed on.

"You think he's hot!" I exclaimed, hiccupping with laughter. "You think he's superhot! Oh my effing God! Does Scott know?"

"No!" Jean snapped out, stopping on the treadmill, using her telekinesis to keep the mat from moving on its cycle. "And I'd appreciate it if he didn't!"

I turned off my machine, doubled over in uncontrollable laughter. "Oh, Jean, I'm sorry, but it's too, too much!" I cried out.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line, and I saw her face flush with anger. She tossed that mane of red hair and stopped her machine altogether. "Sometimes you talk too much, Isabel Sayre! Too much for your own good!" And she picked up her bottle of water and her towel and stomped out of the room.

Try as she might, Jean couldn't hide it forever, and neither could Scott or Logan. The triangle soon grew to affect everyone, particularly me, since I could see the glow from the auras when the three of them were not concentrating on hiding them. It was an awful position, being the witness, the observer, and it more or less made me the fourth person in their little soap opera.

Logan was much nicer than I ever believed him capable of being. He helped me to incorporate other skills into my fencing, and he did buy wine for me until I turned twenty-one. I can't tell you how many times he came to get my friends and me from bars or fraternity houses when we were too drunk to drive or even walk home, and he soon became a secret favorite among my group of friends in Delta Tau and the rest of the Greek community at ESU. Too drunk to drive home? Creeped out by the guy who keeps buying you shots and is a little too touchy-feely and forceful? Don't call Sober Sis, call old Logan; his cell number is always on speed dial, and he'll come to your rescue like a knight in a flannel shirt, leather jacket, and cowboy boots in his old used Jeep. One look from him would scare any Creepy Boy off.

He was there at my graduation party when Jean and Scott and Storm presented me with a sterling silver Tiffany pendant with a cursive _I_ engraved into it, and his name was on the card, too. I gave him a hug anyhow, even though he didn't want to me to be too demonstrative about it. He let me cry in his arms after my mother died from her kidneys shutting down after her long battle with MS, after my return from Saint-Malo to bury her ashes. He encouraged me to go to grad school. Even if it meant breaking it off with Kyle.

I don't think either of us knew what a full-moon night on a certain midsummer's eve would mean for us. I don't think either of us had ever thought of how other people's actions could affect us, draw us together in such a way that it would be difficult to rend us apart, regardless of how anyone tried.

Because things happen. Life happens. And in the end, we have to take what's given to us and deal with it in the best way we can.


	2. Part One

**Disclaimer: I don't own "X-Men" or any other Marvel characters, but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all original characters are my creations.**

**Sings the Nightbird**

**Part One**

"Tell me about Canada."

"What about it?" he asked her, watching as she lifted one of the tiny bottles of wine in a four-pack to her mouth as he would a beer, and she glanced over at him with those forget-me-not eyes of hers.

She stretched and gazed up at the clear starlit sky above them, shivering in the too-big fleece sweatshirt that had once belonged to Kyle—they were broken up, _again_—and he inhaled. He didn't _want_ to be out here with her like this, sprawled out on a blanket with her on a cool-verging-on-chilly autumn night and watching the stars. She didn't say a word when he lit a cigar and she was quite quiet. She didn't ask why he had left for Canada and what had happened there; that part, at least, she could intuit. _Sabertooth.__Jean and Cyclops._ But Gambit and Rogue had gone out for the evening, Jubilee was inside doing homework, Storm and Jean had gone to catch a flick, Boy Scout was on watch, and Hank was with the Professor working on some research.

"Not about the city, because I've been to Montreal and all that. Tell me about where you went. Did you see the northern lights?"

The northern lights. Aurora borealis. "Yeah."

"What did they look like?"

Isabel was trying to get him to talk without asking direct questions. "They're so big," he began. "An' it's almost like you could reach out an' touch 'em, an' the colors…"

"I'd like to see them," she sighed.

He turned over to his side to face her. "You'd love 'em." His breath caught as the moonlight shined on her profile, the delicacy of her features, her elfin face, so different from Jeannie's movie-star looks. And he saw it, the faint hint of silver that betrayed her Fae blood, that glimmered a bit and disappeared and that was so beautiful he thought his heart leapt to his throat.

_Stop it, Logan. Compared to you, she's a little girl. She'd never take ya home. She'd laugh in yer face._

"He called me china doll." Her musical tones brought him back to reality. "He told me he would break me like one."

That was Creed. Hunt, rape, kill, crush, pillage, destroy. "I'm sorry, honey," he mumbled as she ran her forefinger over her lips, tracing them.

"What do you have to be sorry about?" she demanded, sitting up halfway and staring down at him with flashing eyes. "Don't be silly, Logan! You're the one who listened to his gut and saved us, despite what Scott and the Professor said. You're far too hard on yourself. Scott gets on his high horse too much sometimes. _I_ can question him because he knows I question everything. He just doesn't like_ you_ doing it because it's a testosterone thing."

He took another sip of beer as she narrowed her eyes for a moment. "He was in Canada, wasn't he?"

"I ain't sayin' nothin', Miss Clever." He didn't want to talk about it, least of all with _her_. What did she know of anything, she, so sheltered, the little princess up in her ivory tower?

"Logan," she cajoled, sitting up now, folding her legs Indian style. She moved with such airy grace and ease, it seemed like she had performed a complicated ballet step to perfection. "He was there. I see your colors—I know it. You can't shut your colors from me. Your colors betray you."

"Fuck my colors, Sayre! I _said_ I didn't wanna talk about it? Got it?" he snarled, sitting up and glaring at her. She tossed her mahogany-hued head and huffed.

"You're not a coward, Logan," she said softly, her eyes growing misty. "You're a good man…a decent man. You deserve far more than what you think you do."

"Sayre…"

"Please listen to me." She leaned forward, her face sincere. "I'll always believe that, Logan. You deserve happiness…just like the rest of us. And I hope you find it, I pray you find it…"

"Isabel!"

Jeannie…

"Isabel." Jean ran across the lawn with Isabel's cell phone in her hand. "Isabel, it's Kyle. He wants to talk to you…"

"Kyle?" Isabel echoed incredulously. She took the phone from Jean, and put it to her ear. "Hello?...No, I wasn't….With a friend here at the mansion….Logan. We were just talking….What?...I…Kyle….Oh, Kyle….Oh, yes, sweetheart, I love you too, but…Just a minute." She took the phone from her ear and pressed the mouthpiece to her lap to muffle their conversation. "Do you want me to call him back later, Logan? I can if you want me to…"

"No. Go on ahead. Jeannie an' I'll clear up." He waved her back to the house, and she picked up the package of wine bottles and hurried up to the house with her phone pressed to her ear, flirting and giggling like she was a sorority girl again.

"What were you two doing out here?" Jean queried gently, picking up the blanket as he put out the fire in the firebowl.

"Nothin'. Hangin' out, just talkin'," he answered noncommittally, hoping Jean wouldn't push further.

"It seemed pretty intense," Jean remarked, arching a perfectly defined eyebrow and tilting her head.

"She asks too many questions sometimes," Logan complained.

"She means well." Jean sighed as they walked back up to the house, Logan with the beer box in his hand. "She's not like me, where it comes in a straight, coherent thought. It's a shimmer, a picture, a voice, a feeling, a sound. She tries to piece them together like a puzzle." She furrowed her brow. "It's something else, isn't it, Logan?"

Shit.

"Look, Jeannie," he said frankly, "I'm gonna be honest with you. I like her as a friend, so don't sick Scott on me with all the overprotective shit. But listenin' to her, talkin' with her…she's a beautiful girl, Jeannie. She deserves more than Douchebag."

"More?" Jean echoed, raising her eyebrows.

"More than me," he added quickly. "I ain't got no designs on her, Jeannie, but I wanna see her happy. Hell, I'd rather see her with Gumbo than Douchebag."

That satisfied Jean. By the end of the call Isabel and Kyle were back together. And life at the mansion went on.

* * *

It ended three months later in a screaming match in the middle of the driveway. She threw the promise ring Kyle had given her at him and stalked into the house.

Douchebag followed. You'd think the guy could take a hint, Logan thought, as he watched from his vantage point on the couch beside Jubilee.

"Stay here," he ordered Jubilee, gruffly. She glanced up at him suspiciously.

"What? And let you miss out on all the fun?" she said. "Not a chance!" And she was up, too, following him upstairs into Isabel's room.

Logan had never been in Isabel's room ever since she had graduated from college two years ago, but he knew that she had changed the décor last year with Rogue's help. It was like a transition from semi-adulthood to full adulthood, though right now, the way she was riffling through her drawers and closets, she seemed to be acting like a child in the middle of a tantrum. And Logan could smell that she'd been drinking, besides.

"What's goin' on, Bells?" he asked her quietly as Jubille stood in the doorway with wide, overwhelmed eyes.

Isabel sat back on her heels and glared daggers at Logan, as though somehow he should be able to pick up on the obvious. "What does it look like, Logan? I broke up with Kyle-for the last time. He's such a douchebro…"

"A douchebro?" Logan echoed.

"A douchebro…a douchebag who also thinks he's a bro. Like Barney on 'How I Met Your Mother.'" She took out the drawer that had been Kyle's and emptied the contents. "I'm not giving up _this_. I'm not giving up finishing grad school. There's other guys out there."

"Does he even know you're a mutant?" Jubilee blurted, and Isabel turned to her.

"What's that got to do with anything, Miss Nosy? It doesn't matter _now_." She turned to Logan. "Get me a garbage bag, won't you?"

"Jubes, can you get her a garbage bag?" Logan asked her. Jubilee sulked.

"Why do I always have to miss out on the cool stuff that happens?" she mumbled.

"Jubes, just do it."

"All right, then, Wolvie, but you _owe me_," Jubilee muttered. She hurried down the hallway and downstairs to the kitchen to get a garbage bag for Isabel.

"So," Logan began, "you dumped Kyle?"

"Yeah." Isabel went into her walk-in closet and began to tug the few shirts and slacks Kyle had left there off of the hangers, and she threw them into a pile on the floor. "For good this time. What kind of guy expects you to give up everything for him like a Stepford wife?"

Logan thought for a moment. "A douchebro."

Isabel stopped, then began to laugh. "Oh, it feels so good just to get rid of him," she sighed, returning to clearing his things out of the closet. "And I can concentrate on school and my thesis and…"

"Why is Kyle downstairs in the hallway with mud on the knees of his jeans?" a voice in the hallway queried.

He smelled the Boy Scout.

Isabel turned to Scott. "Oh, we broke up for good this time. He's just waiting for his stuff."

Scott glanced at Logan. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Me an' Jubes just got pulled into it," Logan said, shrugging his shoulders.

"You got it from here?"

"Whaddaya mean 'you got it from here?'" Logan demanded.

"I mean, can you make sure he gets out of here without any more scenes?" Scott said succinctly.

"Yeah, I'll make sure Douchebro don't come back," Logan replied.

"He's not coming back," Isabel told Scott.

"You said that last time," Scott reminded her.

She kicked off her flats and set them on her bed. "Well, he's not coming back this time."

"I'm holding you to it," Scott said to her. "This is getting old."

"Of course it is," Isabel said. "Which is why I'm done."

Scott glanced at Logan. "You heard what the she said," Logan told Scott gruffly. "I'll hold her to it."

Jubilee returned with not one, but two garbage bags, and Isabel gleefully began to stuff Kyle's things in them, double-knotting the ties when she was done.

Kyle seemed astonished when Isabel came downstairs carrying the garbage bags. But then when he saw that Isabel finally meant it this time, he calmly took them and said, "I'll bring your things by next week."

And so that was the end of that.

* * *

Isabel threw herself into her studies with a new zeal, and she finished the first draft of her dissertation and handed it to Hank and Professor Xavier to edit as though she were a child presenting a finished project to them.

There was just something so liberating about the breakup, as though she were leaving all remnants of her college years behind her and finally breaking into adulthood. She couldn't give up her place at the Xavier Institute, and having someone expect her to do so was just too much. She knew that she made a difference-she truly did-even if she didn't always understand where the other students were coming from. She was Miss Sayre, shining with a certain freshness, and she loved the whole teaching process.

Charles had told her long ago that many times, it had been a choice for his other students: remain at the Institute as a teacher or rejoin the world under the mask of being a normal human. Some people could juggle both, and Isabel had tried and failed. And somehow, it felt good to realize that she couldn't do it all, not like her mother had always expected her to.

When she would go out, it was often with people whom she already knew as friends, like Scott and Jean or Rogue and Storm or even just Gambit. And Logan, of course, when he wanted someone to go out with him, when he would just want to sit and drink quietly and not talk about anything.

Those were always the best moments, the moments of quiet with Logan, when she would sit at the table across from him and watch the hockey game and glance over at the calm blue of his aura and know that just for a moment, she could just _be_. Not be an X-Man or the accomplished overachiever with so much to hide, but just be Isabel. Logan never asked for anything, nor did he want to give her anything in return, except for the same understanding he had with certain members of the team. He wanted to just _be_, too, and Isabel allowed that. For the things he had done for her and helped her through, she could do that much for him.

* * *

She found him on his balcony, staring up at the wide expanse of sky above them, at the stars that glittered like indifferent diamonds in it. He did not turn to see who it was who stepped outside, but he could tell who it was by the silent, timorous way in which she approached him.

If Storm was a Goddess of the Elements, then, in Xavier's mind, Jean was day, sunflowers and daffodils and buttery sunshine, the red hair the vivacity of daylight, larks and sparrows and robins. Isabel, however, was twilight, dusk, violets and snowdrops, nightingales keeping their watch and singing throughout the night, owls silently flapping through the starlit skies. Isabel was dark-haired and quiet, with eyes the color of midnight, skin as pale as moonlight, and she had that faint silver glow emanating from her that gave him a sense of solace. To glow like that in the moonlight, to almost be a beacon. He needed the moonlight beacon now that Jean's clear sunlit rays couldn't always show him the way in the night.

"There's the Big Dipper." She pointed. "And Cassiopeia."

"And Cepheus." Charles glanced at Isabel.

"The king." Isabel smiled down at him. "Hank's astronomy lessons were always the best. And it was always easy to remember because I'd read up on the mythology behind it anyhow."

"The things parents do to keep only children occupied," Charles said with a laugh. He maneuvered his hover chair to go inside, and Isabel followed him. "Close the balcony door, Isabel."

She did so and sat down in one of the armchairs closest to the empty fireplace as Charles went to his desk for his laptop. "Magneto has sent me a communication."

"Really?" She seemed surprised that he hadn't shared it with the rest of the team.

"It's rather sensitive information…and knowing how some other members of the team feel about him, I thought it would be better to only disclose it to a few people, namely you, Jean, Storm, and Scott." He watched her reaction; she leaned forward slightly, clearly curious.

"Why me?" she asked him, tilting her head. "I don't have a lead position on the team…"

"But it concerns not only mutants, but also diluted-blood Fae."

Isabel's brows knitted. "What do you mean?"

"Magneto has come upon a laboratory in Canada that has been experimenting on diluted-blood and half-blood Fae for years," Charles explained, handing her his laptop and showing her the communication. "They think they may have found some full-blooded Fae."

"What?" Isabel intoned, staring at the message until it blurred on the screen. _"How_ were they able to get full-blooded Fae, let alone the Half-Bloods who live in the enclaves?"

"With the help of mercenaries, perhaps," Charles speculated. "Or if there was someone who was careless…"

"But having Fae ancestry doesn't mean the same thing as being a mutant does. There's no outward sign or way to tell, unless…" Isabel gasped. "Do they have a rogue Fae working for them?"

"I'd doubt it." Charles took the laptop from her. "Magneto requests that you join him on the Northwest Territories."

"And Magneto wants me there because…"

"Because you speak the language, and because you could be of some help." Charles steepled his fingers and leaned his chin on his fingertips. "He trusts you."

"That doesn't mean that I think he can be trusted…necessarily," Isabel countered.

"But you've always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if it's the smallest benefit combined with a sort of guardedness." Charles smiled ruefully. "The word he uses with you is 'reasonable.'"

"But what will he want in exchange? You _know_ that dealing with him is like dealing with the devil," she reminded Charles.

"Strangely," Charles said, "he wants nothing. Or so he says, which is why I want you to think about this. If you do decide to go, I want you to go with a team, one that you and I will pick. Not that you wouldn't be swayed by Magneto and ally with him, but it always helps to have some perspective when dealing with things that might affect you directly."

"I do want to go, and I definitely want to take Hank McCoy."

"I think that would be a good choice." Charles closed his laptop. "You'll want a telepath."

"Jean?"

"I was thinking Elisabeth Braddock."

"Psylocke would work." She considered for a moment. "If this is in Canada, shouldn't we also take Logan? Maybe we could find some information to help him out. Maybe this lab and his are connected…"

"I wouldn't risk it. I'd find whatever information I could and bring it back. It could trigger something, and the last thing we want is Wolverine on berserker rage when we're trying to work with Magneto…in an uneasy alliance." Charles returned to the subject at hand. "You need three more. I want to send an even six, in case you need to split up."

"Gambit. And Kitty Pryde." At least Gambit could tell when to keep his mouth shut, Isabel reasoned. Most of the time. "Kurt?"

"Rogue would be a better choice."

"You're thinking we may need to fight him?"

"If need be."

"If that's going to be the case, then I want Storm."

"Why?"

"Storm is better at being diplomatic than I am. And she can lead it…"

"You don't want to lead?"

"I'm terrified of the possibility."

"We'll let Hank act as leader. Rogue will be the sixth…" He trailed off and he sighed wearily. "You may as well learn now how to lead a mission. There may come a day when you don't have a choice."

"We'll see," was all Isabel said. "When does he want us?"

"I'll speak with him in the morning. Meanwhile, Isabel, consider what I said."

She smiled sweetly. "Of course. Good night."

"Good night, Isabel."

* * *

An excerpt from the Xavier Protocols regarding the Black Queen, gathered from notes on the Hellfire Club contained in the library in Brocéliande:

_It is said that Selene Galleo, the reigning Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and a psychic vampire, particularly enjoys Fae essence when she can get it. This can be from any Half-Blood, Diluted-Blood, or even a full-blooded Fae. This desire for it has been the reason for attacks on many Diluted-Bloods in Western Europe, particularly on the British Isles, and has rekindled the bitter vendetta between the Fae and the Hellfire Club. The Black Queen has a price on her head, and there are many a Half-Blood and Diluted-Blood who would love to purge this world of her existence. I'm sure she will die by Fae hand, but it is quite difficult to breach the perimeters of every Hellfire Club property, and moreover difficult to gain access to her once on the premises. Whoever does this will no doubt lose his or her life in killing her…_

Isabel closed her laptop and shuddered, picking up her wineglass to sip at her Pinot Noir.

It wouldn't surprise her if _that woman_ had something to do with it.

Isabel had never encountered her, but there were always the stories that had been passed down, stories that her grandmother would tell her during windy winter nights in Brittany around Christmastime.

The prospect of the Black Queen's involvement was…_frightening._

"You look like someone stepped on your grave, _chère_," she heard Remy remark from the threshold of the rec room, and Isabel turned to glance at him.

"No," she said. "Just thinking."

"About de mission Professor Xavier gonna send us on?" Remy persisted.

"A little." She watched as Remy came into the room, and he went to turn on the television.

"Wolv'rine found out about it. He ain't too happy," Remy said as he flipped through the channels. "He wanna go."

"Well, he's not going. And I wasn't the one who made the decision. Professor Xavier did," she told Remy succinctly.

"_Bon_, 'cause you can tell Wolvie right now," Remy said quickly, and Isabel's head whipped around to see Logan standing in the hallway with a newly opened bottle of beer in his hand. Remy sensed that this was the right time to leave, and he bade them both good night and dashed out of the room.

"So," Logan said, "Xavier didn't want me on this one?"

"You need to stop sneaking up on people. It's bad manners," Isabel retorted as she flipped through the television channels.

"Yer intuition goin' all hay-wire again?" he asked her as he sat down on the couch across from hers. "Ya might wanna get that fixed."

"I will," she replied. "As soon as this mission is over."

"You said that last time."

"Well, I was going to go to France," she sulked, "but then I got landed with _this_…"

"I want in."

"Ask the professor."

"You know he won't let me in."

"Are you saying I should let you in under his nose? No!"

He gritted his teeth. "Bells, ya kown there could be something' valuable there that could put me on the right trail. If ya'd only…"

"That's why Hank, Kitty, and Gambit are coming. And why we have Psylocke as the telepath on this mission. Rogue is the muscle."

"Because Xavier told you to, and like a good little girl, ya defer to Xavier in the end," Logan said mockingly.

"If you have a bone to pick with Xavier, you can do it yourself. I agree with him on this one, Logan."

"You ain't gonna go to bat for me?"

"Not this time."

He took his cigar out of his pocket. "Some teammate you are!" he snarled.

She put her wineglass down in the table with a resounding _thunk_. "I'm not going to argue with you, Logan! Professor Xavier put together the team with my input, and the choices are final! Believe me, I would've loved for you to go, but the risks were too much."

"What risks?" he demanded.

"You know _what risks_," she hissed. "You'd either take off in the middle of the mission, looking for God knows what based on some tiny lead, or it would trigger something and you could go into a feral state, which is the last thing we need with Magneto and his minions around…"

"So you don't trust me?" he said, very quietly.

She closed her eyes and pressed her palms to her temples. God, she was getting a headache. "No, Logan, it's not that, it's…"

"You don't trust me." He scoffed, and then he took a long pull of beer from the bottle. "Ain't that somethin'. Ya finally jumped on the bandwagon. Logan is an animal who's barely in control, and he can't be trusted. Halle-fuckin-leujah."

Isabel averted her eyes from his and picked up her wineglass and her laptop. "Look, Logan, I have a headache, and if that's what you think, then fine. I'm not going to try to explain myself to you when you don't even want to listen."

And Isabel brushed past him, trying to ignore the muddy yellow, green, blue, and gray of his aura. He didn't want to listen. She didn't want to argue. And she wouldn't argue.

There were more important things at hand right now.


	3. Part Two

**Disclaimer: I don't own "X-Men" or any other Marvel characters, but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all original characters are my creations.**

**Sings the Nightbird**

**Part Two**

Elisabeth Braddock was in the kitchen early that morning, and she murmured good morning to Isabel as the latter went to make herself a café au lait. Isabel had never really been close with Psylocke; she never really trusted someone who always kept the aura sealed off, just so she didn't know what that person was thinking. Isabel had griped to Jean about it when she first met Betsy, and Jean had promptly replied, "The only reason she keeps it closed off from _you_ is because of the things you'll think, and most of the time the things you think become the things you say before you even know what you're doing."

"They do not!" Isabel had exclaimed defensively, and Scott had looked up from the football game with a grin on his face.

"See? The redhead is always right, Bells!" he had laughed.

Isabel now spread some Nutella on her toast and went to sit by Elisabeth. "So," Isabel said brightly, "what do you think about the mission?"

"It's a mission." Betsy watched Isabel with the detachment of one sizing up an opponent. "Are you nervous, Isabel?"

"No," Isabel said quickly, "I'm not nervous."

"The fact that Magneto asked for you to be in the team should make you nervous," Betsy remarked calmly.

"Magento doesn't make me nervous," Isabel insisted.

"Because you're the reasonable one," Betsy said, smiling.

Isabel bit her lip. That was what Magneto always said. _I've always liked you, Isabel, despite our differences. You're one of the more…reasonable ones._

Which was a lie. Because Magneto would kill for a liaison to help build the alliances Charles had forged among the Half-Blood Fae in the enclaves, just like Magneto would always kill for a telepath like Jean or for someone of Hank's intellect.

Which was why…

She really hated Betsy's efforts to keep a distance from her sometimes.

But this time she was happy for it.

* * *

"I want Logan on the mission," Isabel told Charles.

Charles's brow furrowed. "You do?"

"We should have included him in the first place," she went on, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic, then tucking her long, sideswept bangs behind her right ear. "I mean, Betsy can keep him calm. And then there's Kitty and Hank, and I can read his aura, so…"

Charles sighed. "Do you want the truth, Isabel?"

She pursed her lips, seeing the muddied yellow of his aura. "Tell me."

"Magneto doesn't want him there."

"Well, then Magneto doesn't get me."

Charles's lips thinned. "I thought you would say that. Why do you want Logan there, Isabel?"

"He can read people."

"So can you."

"Not Magneto…not all the way. And if that Scarlet Witch is with him this time… you know I won't be able to see his colors if she's there."

"Which is why you want Logan. He can tell lies by smell."

"And spot danger. Better than Hank can. Besides, what if Magneto hired Sabertooth again? Logan can fight him."

Charles blinked. "While you shoved the carbon dioxide back into his lungs?"

"It worked in the Danger Room."

Charles sighed audibly. "All right then, Isabel, we can include Logan. Go ahead and let him know. Somehow I think you want to tell him the news anyhow…"

Isabel smiled with the victorious air of someone who had gotten her way through making a convincing, logical argument. And she dissipated and traveled through the ductwork outside in the form of a silvery vapor.

* * *

Isabel always smelled of a few things to Logan: the bitter, acrid scent of ozone, the vibrant scent of plums and night flowers, and a honey-sweet, cloying smell. The smell of her Fae blood, which could turn into a terrible stench for a fully gone feral. It was didn't really put Logan off; he welcomed the scent because it was familiar to him during the times he was fully gone. But someone else, someone like Sabertooth…it had been the Fae scent that had driven Sabertooth mad, made him howl like some crazy monster and grab Isabel and throw her across the room like a rag doll. Because the instinct was to kill the smell, to throw it away, to get it as far out of your perimeter as you could before it consumed you…

He heard the gentle swish of molecules as they reconstituted themselves into Isabel's shape, something that no one else really heard when she dissipated and reappeared. Most people heard a sound like a breath, and then nothing, but for Logan, it was so much more than that. It was a disarranging and rearranging of herself, the sounds of gas forming into liquid and then into solid, and then the whole Isabel appearing before him, tangible and quite alive. Real.

She would sometimes come out to the Japanese garden to watch as he exercised with his katana sword, the terrible reminder of his tragic love for Mariko, and she would sit there, as still as a deer in the woods, her lips pursed and her eyes seeing him but not seeing as she let her mind wander. She gave nothing but silence and the reassurance of her presence, and she wanted only the same from him.

But now she approached him, and he put down the sword and turned to her, and she seemed like she was about ready to deliver good news. Her dark blue-almost violet-eyes sparkled, and she was smiling.

"You're in," she announced.

"I'm in?" he echoed incredulously. "You mean on the mission?"

"Of course you are," she said, sounding a little annoyed.

"How'd ya manage that one, Bells?" he asked her.

She tilted her head, her expression a little sulky. "I was very persuasive. I told the professor Magneto didn't get me if he didn't want you there, and that was that."

"How'd Magneto take it?"

"No clue. He doesn't know yet." She smiled crookedly. "He'll have to deal with it, though."

"Ya went to bat for me." He said it quietly, more quietly than he had intended, because he didn't believe it.

"Of course I did." She blinked twice. "You know I'll always go to bat for you, Logan."

He nodded at her with a quick smile, then he returned to his exercises. "Thanks, Bells."

"Anytime," she replied, and she stood there, watching him for a moment, and then as he was about ready to turn around and say something to her, she was on her way back to the mansion.

* * *

Jean was there when Isabel returned. There was a look of concern on her face, Isabel noticed, and Isabel could see the muddy blue and gray tinting Jean's aura.

"You have something to say?" she asked Jean.

Jean huffed in annoyance. "I hate it when you do that!"

"Then hide your colors." Isabel sauntered into the kitchen for another café au lait and Jean followed her.

"So Logan is going?" Jean asked her.

"Yeah, he is," Isabel said.

"And how did you pull off that one?"

"By arguing logically. Something Professor Xavier taught me to do."

"Isabel," Jean admonished, "you cornered him."

"Wrong. I cornered Magneto. He can blame me."

Jean folded her arms across her chest. "What is it with you, Isabel? Why do you always have to push? Why do you always have to question?"

"Professor Xavier taught me to do that, too," Isabel said loftily. "And so did my mom."

Jean tapped her fingertips on the counter. Isabel tapped her artificial nails on her coffee mug. Jean rolled her eyes. "So you took a chance on him. It was the right thing to do."

"Would you have done it?"

"Knowing him, I'm not sure," Jean admitted.

"He hasn't let me down yet," Isabel told Jean.

"That's because he respects you. And he cares about what you think of him."

"He does with you, too."

"Not like with you. It's…" Jean struggled to find the word. "It's different."

"How?"

"Because." Jean's voice trembled a bit, and she stopped, then began again once she had collected herself. "Because you've never let him down like I have."

Isabel put down her coffee mug and slid her gaze up to Jean. "That was an unintended mess, Jean. You never expected…"

"There were times when I knew what I was doing, when I was using him to make Scott jealous. And you and Ororo called me on it. Too many times."

Isabel glanced away from Jean. She didn't like being reminded of how she'd been able to see it, all of it, through the changing of auras and coming upon things that had never been intended for her eyes. But it was over now, she reasoned. The triangle had crumbled, and they had all moved on.

At least, she hoped…

But she couldn't think about that now.

"Logan has never let me down," Isabel told Jean. "Ever."

"And you trust him?"

"With my dying breath," Isabel said almost ironically, though she got the chilly feeling after that she shouldn't have said something like that. Because that could jinx her, and jinxes had a common way of coming back to haunt you.

* * *

The communication with Magneto was a tense session, with Isabel and Hank at Professor Xavier's side as they conferred. Magneto wasn't exactly thrilled at the announcement that Wolverine would be joining their group, let alone Psylocke, and when he asked who had made the decision, Isabel volunteered the truth: she had.

"I see," was all Magneto said, and Charles's face remained impassive.

"Sylphide's assistance to you is conditional," Charles explained carefully. "If you won't allow Wolverine on the mission, then you won't get our assistance at all."

Magneto's jaw muscle flexed. "You drive a hard bargain, Charles."

"It's Sylphide who asks that you make this concession," Hank reminded Magneto carefully, removing his glasses and wiping them on his sleeve.

"And I didn't know Sylphide had been appointed new leader of the X-Men," Magneto said laughingly.

Isabel jutted out a hip and placed a hand upon it. "You asked for my help, Magneto," she reminded him.

"Of course I did." He said this gently, condescendingly. She scoffed at him.

"So that means I have some say in who comes with me, doesn't it?" she went on.

His face darkened. "Very well then," he said with an air of feigned calmness. "I'll await your arrival then, Sylphide. You and your…entourage."

She bristled at the word "entourage," like it meant that she was somehow more important than her teammates. She opened her mouth to say something cutting but she heard Charles's voice in her mind.

_Don't let him get to you. He's trying to see how the dynamics of this team will work. Don't give him an edge._

She closed her mouth and smiled crookedly. "I'll look forward to it."

Hank cleared his throat. "We'll be looking forward to assisting you," he told Magneto carefully. That was Hank-always trying to keep an even keel over things.

"Of course," Hank said to Isabel as they walked out of Professor Xavier's study, "this could potentially be a very inflammatory situation."

"When isn't dealing with Magneto a potentially inflammatory situation?" Isabel said.

"True." Hank considered for a moment. "But if this laboratory is connected in any way with what happened to Logan…"

"Magneto wouldn't release that information even if it was," Isabel said.

"I think he would, Isabel, if we knew how to play the game," Hank speculated.

Isabel stopped in her tracks. "Are you saying that we use the knowledge Betsy and I can glean from the Fae as a bargaining chip?"

Hank smiled, showing his fangs. "Isabel, do you really think I would suggest such a thing?"

"Oh, no, Hank-not you!" she laughed. "Have you been brushing up on your Machiavelli again?"

"Maybe I have…just a little. In between Fitzgerald and rereading _Paradise Lost_." He continued down the hallway. "Whoever said the classics weren't applicable to everyday life?"

"Or the way our team operates," Isabel chimed in, following him. "So we're going to talk to Betsy?"

"It's best if she's aware of what we'll be doing, so she knows what to look for," Hank explained.

Isabel sighed inwardly in relief. This was why Hank had to be the leader in this mission, because most of the time, he could mentally outmaneuver even Magneto if push came to shove. And this was what they needed. Someone who could think and tune out the distractions while taking everything into account.

Something that she found very difficult to do most of the time.

* * *

"And I'm along _because…_?" Kitty asked Isabel as they made their way to the War Room to meet with Professor Xavier before leaving.

"Because we need a hacker number two. Like we need a telepath, some muscle, and someone who can break into virtually any security system if needed," Isabel told her succinctly.

"And Wolvie is…"

Isabel thought for a moment. "The enforcer."

"He's no Dirty Harry."

"And I'm no comedian."

"That's right-you're not," Kitty teased. "You know, I'm glad Hank's leading. It's not all protocol, protocol, protocol. Not that I don't like Scott…"

"I get what you mean," Isabel said quickly. "Hank listens. Scott-not always."

"Will Wolvie listen?" Kitty wondered.

"Wolvie doesn't have a choice, sugah," Rogue piped up from behind them. "Not from what Ah hear." She smiled knowingly at Isabel.

"What do you mean?" Kitty said.

"Bells here argued Logan's case and won. He owes her." Rogue laughed.

"Logan doesn't owe me anything," Isabel insisted crisply.

Rogue winked flippantly. "We all know you're just sayin' that, Bells. But you'll keep it in mind. You might need to."

Isabel knew that Rogue was just teasing and trying to make light of the situation, yet at the same time, she wished Rogue would just shut up about it. Things were already tense as it was. They were venturing into a predicament in which Magneto was in control, and it would be difficult to predict what he would do, even if he was ostensibly asking for Isabel's help.

Professor Xavier and Cyclops were already in the War Room, and Storm entered behind Gambit. Then came Beast, and then Psylocke, and then Wolverine. Isabel tried to concentrate on the holographic image in front of her that showed what the facility Magneto had overtaken looked like. In the Rockies. In Alberta. Of course, she thought witheringly. In an isolated place, far from anything any Fae would know, and crushing any hope of escape.

She glanced at Logan, whose face remained stoic under his hood as he leaned back against one of the consoles. There was no reaction from him, but his aura was lined with a dirty gray. Was he remembering something?

And then she saw a flash of muddy blue.

_Fear._

She started from her reverie from the scraping sound as Cyclops pushed his chair back from the table. He rose, eyeing all of them levelly, and then he straightened as his stare lingered on Logan.

Isabel heard a growl, but Logan stayed where he was.

"This is an info-gathering mission," Cyclops told them, his tone serious and measured. "You go in, you help Sylphide do what she needs to do and get any intelligence you can, you come home. End of story. No side trips, no sneaking off, no passing go, no collecting two hundred dollars. We're dealing with Magneto, and we're keeping everything lock-tight. Got it?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"Hank is leading the mission. What he says goes."

_Thank God_, Isabel thought to herself.

"Any information gathered will be verified before we follow any leads. That's what we mean by _coming home_."

Kitty glanced over at Isabel and made a face. Isabel stifled a giggle.

"It has already begun to snow in the area," Storm said as she maneuvered the image to show the lab in relation to the mountains. "We have made sure that the Blackbird has appropriate gear for you if you find yourselves in need of it. Psylocke and the Professor will be in constant telepathic contact."

And then Beast took the floor, behaving more like a teacher lecturing to a class than the leader of a possibly dangerous mission. "Sylphide and Psylocke will be interviewing the subjects Magneto has…rescued. In the meantime, Kitty and I will be searching through the computer files to see if anything is of use to us. Gambit's highly perfected skills at thievery will, perhaps, be needed, and Rogue and Wolverine will be backup should anything untoward occur."

"Backup," Rogue snorted. "Nice, Hank!"

"Better you backin' me up dan de Wolv'rine, chère," Gambit riposted suavely. "De prize is better with a fight, non?"

Isabel groaned inwardly. That one was _bad_.

Rogue's glass-green eyes flashed dangerously. "Ah'll shove you back up someplace so far, swamp rat, you'll never see the light of day…"

"Cool it," Wolverine snapped out. "Let's hear what the doc's sayin'…"

"Thank you for bringing everyone's attention back to the matter at hand, Wolverine," Hank said graciously. "Now there are some things that we must keep in mind: Magneto may be hiding something, and so in turn we must hide things. Any information we glean must be kept secret, because it could be of great use later."

"A sort of quid pro quo type thing?" Kitty piped up, and Hank nodded. "I'm with you on it," she said decisively.

"Whatever you do," Professor Xavier cautioned, "we must present a united front. Magneto is very good at picking out the cracks in our foundation and then working to bring it tumbling down. Keep any personal feelings to yourself, and no infighting will be tolerated. Is this understood?"

And to Isabel, at least, it was understood.

And from their auras, everyone else seemed to understand it, too.

* * *

She boarded the Blackbird and saw that Logan had seated himself in the back, while Kitty and Hank took their places up front to pilot and the rest of the team scattered throughout the jet. His jaw flexed, his aura was still that muddy gray. He was staring out the window, his mind obviously someplace else, and after a moment's hesitation, she strode to the back and plopped into the seat next to his.

"Hi," she said.

He turned to face her. "Hey."

"It's past Halloween, Logan. You can take off your hood," she said, indicating his mask.

"I'm good." He turned away from her, his brow furrowing under the mask.

"You're certain?" she persisted.

"Positive, Sylph."

She bit her lip and faced the front as the plane began to take off. She knew Logan always hated this part, and for good reason. She herself used to get a little airsick from Cyclops's take-offs, and she still preferred to summon a wind and melt into it and let it carry her to her destination. But that wasn't feasible, particularly not in this case, and she had to try and maintain the façade of being a normal human. Just showing up in France without a passport or luggage led to too many questions, and so she had resigned herself long ago to using normal air transportation. Most of the time.

As soon as they were in the air, she turned to Logan again. Still the same.

"Do you want to talk about anything?" she asked him quietly.

He whirled to face her, a glare etched into his forehead. "No, Bells, there ain't nothin' I wanna talk about. If ya wanna sit an' yap durin' the whole trip, take a seat by Gumbo. He'll talk yer ear off."

Isabel gritted her teeth. "No," she said sharply. "I think I'll stay here and enjoy the silence and the brooding."

"Suit yerself," Logan grumbled.

Hours later, when she saw the mountains looming below them, she stole a quick glance over at Logan, just to get a peek at his aura.

It was a dark and muddy gray, still with that lighter gray overlay, and with a little muddy blue showing through.

Even though he was keeping it under wraps, he was scared.

Scared to see if there was any information about him in that lab.

Scared to find out who he had been.

And how he had come to be who he was now.


End file.
